


Night Out

by StevetheIcecube



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Spoilers, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Torna Tuesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 05:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16848079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Patroka and Akhos have a question about flesh eaters and Torna decide to try it out and make it into a bit of an occasion.





	Night Out

**Author's Note:**

> I return with some Torna Tuesday, finally! Will hopefully be able to participate a bit more over the next few weeks now I'm out of uni for six weeks.

“So, Mik, you know things about flesh eaters, don’t you?” It was strange to actually get a question from Patroka. In fact, she usually ignored him, and if she didn’t she was insulting him, so this was either a big joke or...actually, he couldn’t think of what else it could be.

But, he was still determined that she would at least like him, so he took the bait. “A little,” he said. “Jin knows a lot more. Malos probably knows more too. You probably know more about the workings of your body than I do.” He slipped a wink into the end of that sentence. Hopefully it would cushion the blow of possibly the worst thing he'd ever said.

Patroka let out a noise of disgust. “You’re gross, Mik. This is something Akhos wanted to know, so don’t get any ideas, okay?” Ah, Akhos. Mikhail prepared himself for some obscure philosophical question about flesh eaters or something about Torna. That was usually what Akhos wanted to hear from him. “He wanted to know if flesh eaters got drunk like people do.”

“I…” Okay, Mikhail wasn’t going to lie, he knew exactly the wrong flesh eaters to know the answer to this question. As much as Minoth had always tried to paint himself as a very intensely cool person, when all the adults had gone out drinking at an inn, Minoth had excused himself and told him and Milton stories instead.

“So?” Patroka demanded. “Do you know?” Mikhail wracked his brain for anything relating to Jin ever going outside or doing anything for fun in recent years.

“No idea,” he said. “I know I can, if that helps.”

“Ugh,” Patroka said. “Akhos wanted to try. But if we’re going to be sober and you’re going to be completely plastered I want nothing to do with any of this.”

“Drinking would require docking the ship somewhere,” Mik told her. “We don’t have any alcohol on board, other than medical stuff. Please don’t drink that.”

“I know, it’s there for when you impale yourself on the engines again,” Patroka said, her tone knowingly dismissive. Mikhail wanted to protest that this had only happened sixteen times, but he realised that didn’t really help his case, considering that was only one of many kinds of injuries he got very regularly from being stupid.

“Well, let me know when you’re planning on discovering if you can get drunk,” he said. “Your first drink’s on me.” He grinned at her with what he wanted to be a winning smile. She scowled in return.

-

When they next docked, it was actually Malos who came to grab him. “Akhos is insisting we all go out somewhere together,” he said. “It’s a bad idea. Do you have a good excuse to stay here?”

“Not at all,” he said, shooting Malos the biggest, most sarcastic grin he could manage. “It all ran perfectly in the docking and there haven’t been any signs of problems for weeks. We’re totally in the clear to go out and do whatever we want.”

“You were meant to lie, Mikhail,” he said, a familiar long-suffering tone entering his voice. “But fine. We can go. I am not holding your floppy fringe back while you vomit into an inn toilet again this time.”

“I never asked you to,” he said, practically leaping through the hallways. He was cautiously excited to see if Akhos and Patroka (and by extension Jin, but Mikhail imagined that Jin would just be a depressing drunk or not change at all) could get drunk.

“And the band is assembled!” Akhos said as Mikhail rounded the corner with Malos right behind him, probably looking ready for murder already. Then again, that was pretty much Malos’ resting expression at this point so it wasn’t anything special.

Fifteen minutes later saw the five of them in an alcove at the back of an inn bar where hopefully no one would listen in on them too closely. It wasn’t the shadiest place in Alrest, that was for sure, but it wasn’t far off and they should probably be safe there. Each of them had a drink in front of them - Malos’ was half empty within minutes.

“You’re not meant to drink that fast,” Jin told him.

“I’m a blade, pure and simple,” Malos said. “I can’t get drunk. I’m just here to watch the fireworks.”

Mikhail shrugged, staring at his own drink. He knew he could get drunk, obviously. His tolerance could be described as decent at best, but absolutely shameful for an adult at worst. He didn’t get the chance to drink very much because drunk him tended to talk a little bit too much and after the first witch hunt sent after them, Jin had heavily limited what he was allowed to drink. This was probably the most relaxed the rule had been in a long time.

At this point, he didn’t really feel like drinking. He wanted to impress Patroka, not push her ever further away from liking him. He knew that he’d not managed to come off as at all charming towards her, but all his sensibilities went out of the window when he spoke to her. He really was incapable of speaking to women.

Being drunk would just be another embarrassing episode for him, he was sure. He’d come to terms with that aspect of his inability to engage with others. And while he’d accepted it, that didn’t mean he had to act in a way that would put him in that position.

It was one mug of beer. He could manage a mug of beer, as long as he drank it slowly. Drinking slowly was a good excuse not to get another drink too, and then another after that. Yeah, that’s what he’d do, and he’d be fine.

Thirty minutes later, that was looking a lot less appealing. Patroka had been loathe to admit it, but she’d definitely been smiling at him. Which meant something was up, which in turn meant that she was getting a little bit tipsy, because what else would it be?

Akhos was less tipsy and more getting towards drunk. To no one’s surprise, he was a very, very loud drunk person, espousing poetry that barely made sense, but then again it usually didn’t make much sense when he was sober so maybe he wasn’t really that drunk. Either way, he was on his second drink, and Patroka was on her third, and being sober was not looking fun at all.

Jin had barely touched his drink, and when Mikhail glanced at him, Jin nodded towards the exit of the inn. Letting out a sigh of relief, Mikhail stood up, excusing himself and pushing his one third empty mug over towards Malos, who just scowled at the pair of them. “We’ll be back,” Jin said.

“You better,” Malos said. Mikhail quietly thought that if they didn’t come back, it may only be Malos left in the bar at the end of the night.

It was colder outside, and that helped a lot immediately. Mikhail let a breath out. “It’s okay to be nervous,” Jin said. Mikhail shifted awkwardly; Jin talking about feelings was always an uncomfortable experience.

“I’m not nervous,” he said. “I just don’t get on with drinking, as you very well know.” The fact that he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Akhos and Patroka was another matter. When he’d been younger and hadn’t cared so much about people’s opinions of him, drinking was just fun. Now? He didn’t think it would be.

“You seemed to always have a lot of fun,” Jin said. “You looked like you were ready to crawl out of your skin in there. You were not having a good time like Akhos and Patroka are.”

“I mean, this is their outing,” he said. He knew the idea was that they would all like it, but he’d rather they enjoy it. Mostly so he could have the satisfaction of making fun of Akhos when he had a killer hangover in the morning, but he did want them to have fun tonight.

“Malos and I won’t let you have a bad evening,” Jin said. “Though getting three drunk people back to the Monoceros will be an experience.”

“I can go back now,” Mikhail said with a shrug. “There are things I can be working on.” He didn’t know why he was suddenly so averse to this, but it wasn’t about to change just because Jin, who was also not drinking, had given him a pep talk.

“If anyone’s going back, it should probably be Malos,” Jin said. “You know what he’s like. Liable to cause more damage sober than Patroka or Akhos could cause drunk.”

Mikhail chuckled, thinking about all the times Malos had boiled over in the last week alone. They’d all been going a bit nuts stuck on the ship, but now he was out and about he didn’t exactly feel much better. “If you’d send Malos back over me, we’re all staying.”

Jin let out a short laugh. The bastard probably knew he’d say just that. Of course he did. “You don’t have to get drunk, of course,” he said, “but don’t hold yourself back because you’re worried about what they’ll think. Just have a good time.”

“I’ll have a good time laughing at them,” he said. “I bet they’re even more drunk than they were when we left them there.”

“Undoubtedly,” Jin said. That was the clear point at which they should be heading back into the inn, but neither of them did. They both stood there, staring out over to the port. The ship stuck out like anything; it was a wonder they didn't get more suspicious authorities questioning them.

“It’s hard to move on and enjoy things, isn’t it?” Mikhail asked. A quarter of a mug should not and would not have lowered his inhibitions enough for this. He didn’t know why he was saying this. 

“I don't think I can,” Jin admitted. “They're gone and we're still here. I can't pretend that Haze would have enjoyed something like this, but-”

“But you feel bad for having fun because they won't,” he said. Jin nodded, and he sighed. “I feel the same. I feel like I should enjoy myself because they'd want me to, but at the same time I feel I can't because they can't.”

“They're gone now,” Jin said. “However they would have felt, these moments should be lived for yourself.” Mikhail nodded, glanced over the Cloud Sea's waves through the darkness again, and headed back inside. He had a night to enjoy, and survivor's guilt could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :) if you liked or didn't like this, please leave a comment so I can improve my work from here! It means a lot.


End file.
